Rekindling: Compassion Fatigue Solutions for Animal Workers

If you're not ok right now, you're in good company. The world is in crisis. Your own world may be too. Your work or your personal life, or maybe even both. When your work requires a lot of you, it can be really hard when you're struggling yourself. This episode will explore: -whether we can help others when we're struggling ourselves -how to figure out what we need during these times -what a Suppo...

Working with animals whether it's vet med, animal welfare, research or rescue/advocacy all has something in common (other than the animals!) and that is working with people. We can't truly help the animals if we can't figure out how to work with the people alongside of us. This episode is about the 5 most important concepts that when mastered, create the most compelling and effective work relation...

How you start your day matters. Especially given the largely unpredictable and sometimes chaotic nature of vet med, animal welfare and other work that revolves around animals. When I found out that all the thought leaders in the personal development space have morning rituals, I decided to try it myself. I'll never go back to not having them!

We all want to live our best life but sometimes the voice in our head is busy telling us how we aren't good enough. You have to make a practice out of proving your brain wrong in what it tells you about yourself. In this episode I share with you a brain hack I created. I call it the "I Don't" List. It's a way to reflect on your past and instead of feeling inadequate about yourself, you can instead...

No wonder we are so confused and reluctant about self-care. The wellness industry has told us that it's about bath bombs and candles but it's not. Well it could be. I like to think much simpler than that. In this episode I'll teach you: -the connection of self-care and self-love -where self-care really begins -the 3 thoughts that are getting in your way and how to overcome them -my new favorite se...

Do we have a say in how we experience our life or is life just happening to us and we are at its mercy? Definitely the former. What life does is present you with neutral things that your brain then interprets as positive or negative. So your experience of your life is actually based on your brain's perspective! And perspective is not static. It's actually 100% within your control.

Today I interview veterinarian, biology teacher and author Dr. Christine Hedrick about her new book "Into The Fold". It's a beautiful, heart-warming story about a group of women who have many differences but are bonded by that which they have in common, a desire to belong and feel supported. One of the characters works in a veterinary practice and is deciding on whether or not to apply to vet scho...

Many of the animal workers I meet feel overwhelmed. Veterinarians, vet techs, animal welfare workers all finding themselves with too much to do and what feels like not enough time to do it all. Overwhelm can derail us if we don't know how to solve for it. And learning how to work with overwhelm In this episode you'll learn: -Where overwhelm actually stems from -How it can cause you to get stuck in...

Licensed Veterinary Technician, mom and Founder/President of Wildwood Farm Sanctuary, Shauna Sherick is making a difference. Having grown up visiting her grandparents farm where they raised animals for food, Shauna later took over that farm and created a safe haven for farmed animals just like those she grew up around. In this episode we talk about: -her journey from LVT to sanctuary founder -what...

Just like making time to exercise, meditate and sleep, I believe we have to make time to feel our feelings. Compassion fatigue can be offset by making room for the vast array of feelings we feel when being in service of animals. In this episode I'll share with you how I'm doing this, how I'm attending to my emotional self-care. I invite you to listen and see what you can apply to your life. Feelin...

You're a helper a healer and a caregiver to animals and maybe to people too. This is a challenging time for many animal workers. Vet med and animal welfare are extremely busy and extremely understaffed. This is a time to amp up your self-care. This is a time to ask yourself what you need in order to keep doing what you do. But helpers, healers and caregivers are often the worst at taking care of t...

These are crazy times in the world and likely in your work too. Emotional whiplash is what happens when we go from one extreme emotional state to another. Like going from a euthanasia to a puppy wellness visit. But just because we can, doesn't always mean we should. This episode will have you thinking about how to better cope with situations like this and also perhaps prevent some of them.

Self-belief is simply believing in yourself and your worth. Unfortunately it's not that common. What's more common is wanting others to believe in us and be supportive of us. But we have it all backwards. What we need to create is belief from the inside.

This week on the podcast I'm getting real vulnerable and telling you what it's like to be me. Someone who is knee-deep in grief and loss over the sudden loss of my mom. Whether you have lost a human or an animal, this episode will likely help you realize that you are not alone. I reveal all my messy thoughts, some that even cause me great shame to admit, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm also talking a...

How does the Hero's Journey relate to personal development and transformation? Essentially the Hero's Journey is the psychological undercurrent of humans. We all share this process as we strive for transformation in our lives. Regardless whether that transformation is a new job, a new degree or a new relationship, the Hero's Journey is at play. It's a roadmap for self-development and I love it so...

I did intend to record this episode but I was so inspired by Simone Biles' actions this week in Tokyo at the Olympics. She withdrew herself from several events due to her mental health. She was quoted in saying her "psychological state put her in significant physical risk". I think we can all learn a lot from her courage, bravery and vulnerability to honor herself on one of the sports world's larg...

Compassion fatigue and grief go hand in hand. I didn't always realize this but I do now. Working with animals exposes you to grief all of the time. Grief is the natural response to loss. When we work with animals we may lose them due to death, euthanasia, adoption, animal transfer or job change. In this episode I'm going to share with you some of the different types of grief that you can experienc...

Women have a love/hate relationship with self-care. They want to love it but they hate that it feels so unattainable and like another thing on their to-do list that they are failing at. In this episode I explore how the socialization of women has affected the way we feel and think about self-care and how to move beyond the outdated misogynistic playbook we've all been handed. It's time to re-write...

Self-care gets a bad rap because we think it's just about self-indulgence like mani's and pedi's. And there's nothing wrong with mani's and pedi's but self-care is much more than that. Self-care is about how you take care of you and your physical space. Clutter is the antithesis of self-care. It weighs us down and prevents our energy from moving freely. In this episode I'll share with you: -my 3 s...

Does it feel like your life is a constant to-do list that you never complete? You're not alone. When is the last time you felt joy, playful and true pleasure? I'm not talking about sexual pleasure, I'm talking about when is the last time you had unbridled fun? And women especially put themselves last on the to-do list so the fun they want to have never comes. We have to change that. ASAP.

What if the deck is stacked against women and the whole "work-life balance" thing isn't even attainable? Or maybe we have to redefine what balance looks like and why we want it. The women I meet in vet med, animal welfare and the research community often feel like they are failing at everything. They are told they should be able to have it all and yet feel like it's an impossibility for them. And...

The only constant is change. Boy I hate that quote! Actually my brain hates that quote. Our brain is dead set against change in any and all forms so no wonder we feel such resistance to it. But change is a part of life and just because our brain hates it doesn't mean we don't have to learn to navigate it.  In this episode you'll learn: -why we resist change -what your brain makes change mean -the...

What do you do when life hands you lemons? When your dog dies? When other things aren't going the way you want? You can think the Universe is conspiring against you, that God hates you or you can think that it's time to make lemonade!!! You can't control life but you can control your experience of it. You can control how you think about it, how you feel about it and how you respond to what happens...

I'm often asked how to know if someone we work with is struggling with compassion fatigue or other issues. Most of the time it can be very hard to tell but with awareness we can know what to look for. While cleaning out my Mom's house I came across a piece of writing that deeply touched me. It was raw and vulnerable and spoke so clearly about mental health issues and how we all wear "masks" (not o...

Does our belief in God impact our compassion fatigue? Does a belief system that includes faith have an affect on how we feel in our work with animals? Do God and compassion fatigue intersect or are they unrelated? All great questions that I'll tackle in this episode. This episode is not meant to sway you one way or another. It's just meant to give you some things to think about. I'll share with yo...